Jacqueline Novogratz Quotes

When my friends and family call me Josie, it feels like I'm being seen. It's something everyone wants, to feel understood.

Wanting to be loved and appreciated connects us all.

I think what everybody really wants is attention; we just want someone to pay attention to us.

At least I had that, one guy understood me.

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

Why is it so unutterably beneficial, the thought that someone besides myself knows me?

Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed. They want to be missed the day they don't show up. They want to be missed when they're gone.

I think half or almost all of the pain in the world … is people not feeling seen. It’s like Mr. Rogers, my hero, says: “Love is the root of everything … love or the lack of it.”

To truly feel seen by another person makes you feel so peaceful.

I think people don't want be alone. Ultimately, we want to feel connected. We want to feel like there is someone who actually sees us in the world. That's the big thing: to be seen. How many people actually feel seen?

I want to feel wanted, of course.

I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by them, heard by them, to be understood and touched by them.

I don't think anyone ever feels acknowledged enough.

I wanna be loved. I just wanna be loved.

Everyone loves to be loved.

All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world.

I have a big thing with eye contact, because I think as soon as you make eye contact with somebody, you see them, and they become valued and worthy.

Time, presence and physical attentiveness are our most basic proxies for something ultimately unprovable: that we are understood.

Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

As human beings, we need to know that we are not alone, that we are not crazy or completely out of our minds, that there are other people out there who feel as we do, live as we do, love as we do, who are like us.

Fundamentally, we all want the same thing. We want to love. We want to be loved, and we want to matter.

Things I say have value and I would love for you to value them, however you get it.

If you have suffered from trauma, one of the most healing things that can happen to you is being seen. Being seen doesn't have to mean that someone actually lays their eyes on you, although that certainly helps.

It's nice when people want to see you.

I want to be somewhere where somebody wants me.